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Washington Redskins appeal decision to cancel trademark

The Washington NFL club filed an appeal today in the case that cancelled the team's federal trademark registrations. "We believe that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ignored both federal case law and

Washington Redskins appeal decision to cancel trademark

The Washington NFL club is battling to keep its 'Redskins' trademark, as seen here at the home FedEx Field before the Aug. 7 preseason home game vs. the New England Patriots.(Photo: Geoff Burke, USA TODAY Sports)

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U.S. Patent Office board had canceled 'Redskins' trademarks as disparaging to Native Americans.

The Washington Redskins filed an appeal today in the case that canceled the team's federal trademark registrations.

"We believe that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) ignored both federal case law and the weight of the evidence, and we look forward to having a federal court review this obviously flawed decision," Robert Raskopf, the team's trademark attorney, said in a statement.

The U.S. Patent Office's trademark board canceled six federal trademark registrations owned by the team in June, ruling that the term "Redskins" was disparaging to "a substantial composite" of American Indians when the marks were granted between 1967 and 1990.

The team said in a release that "the appeal is in the form of a complaint, effectively starting the litigation anew, this time in a federal court before a federal judge, and not in the administrative agency that issued the recent split decision."

The team is effectively suing the petitioners in the appeal, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The appeal asks the federal court to address Constitutional issues. The team release says that the trademark board "improperly penalized the Washington Redskins based on the content of the team's speech in violation of the First Amendment" and that "the team has been unfairly deprived of its valuable and long-held intellectual property rights in violation of the Fifth Amendment."

Named petitioner Amanda Blackhorse said in a statement: "This effort is doomed to fail, but if they want to prolong this litigation, which has already gone on for 22 years, I guess they have that prerogative."

The trademark board canceled the team's trademark registrations in a previous case in 1999 and the team won on appeal in part because a district court ruled that the plaintiffs had waited too long to file their suit. The suit in this case, Blackhorse v. Pro Football Inc., used younger petitioners.

"The Washington Redskins look forward to all of the issues in the case being heard in federal court under the federal rules of evidence,' Raskopf said in the statement. "The team is optimistic that the court will correctly and carefully evaluate the proofs, listen to the arguments, and confirm the validity" of the team's trademark registrations.

The Washington team retains its federal trademark rights pending appeal.

Jesse Witten, attorney for the petitioners, said by email: "We are not surprised by this filing. The team's lawyers said they were going to file this challenge to the TTAB decision. We are ready for this and will respond."

The petitioners have 60 days to respond, just as the team did after the trademark board's decision.

"We have been thinking about this stage of the case," Witten said by phone. "We are prepared. And we are prepared with some surprises."

Blackhorse spoke with USA TODAY Sports from her home in Kayenta, on the Navajo Nation in northeast Arizona.

"The team is suing me and the other plaintiffs," she said. "We thought they'd file an appeal but they decided to file a suit against us. ... This is not just going to an appeals court. This is a full-on trial. We'll have to have our witnesses ready.

(Photo: Patrick Breen, USA TODAY Sports)

"We were expecting this. When they won on appeal last time, in the (Suzan) Harjo case, they won on a legal technicality. And they're not going to have the chance with us."

The National Congress of American Indians and the Oneida Indian Nation said in a joint statement:

"The National Football League claims it has a no-tolerance policy when it comes to racism, but by continuing to fight a court battle defending its promotion of a dictionary-defined racial slur, the league makes clear it is a proud purveyor of bigotry against Native Americans. ... The real question this latest appeal raises is simple: why are the NFL and the Washington team so pathologically committed to continuing to slur Native Americans?"

Blackhorse wrote an update on her Facebook page today:

"It's a good day to be sued!

"One hour ago the Washington Team filed a lawsuit against Amanda Blackhorse, Marcus Biggs Cloud, Jillian Pappan, Phil Gover and Courtney Tsotigh to overturn the TTABs decision to cancel their racist marks and name. We are ready, it's game time!"